Regret
by Constantlyconsciouslyaware13
Summary: What was the Exile doing before ending up on the Harbinger, the Ebon Hawk, and finally Peragus? This is the tale of Reysha Starfire, twin sister of the most notorious Jedi in the Galaxy and poster girl for PTSD. rated for drug abuse, language, and violenc
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: **I don't own any of this, just the concept and the crew of the Star Dancer

**A/N:** Welcome to the first tentative chapter of my Kotor 2 fic! This is basically what the Exile was doing before being taken aboard the Harbinger and the beginning of the game. Enjoy!

LFK

_**Star Dancer: Five Minutes Outside of Dea'une **_

It was the height of the galactic trade season, and, as usual the starport cities of Dea'une, a planet in Hutt space, were hubs of frantic activity. Hundreds of ships docked every hour, while hundreds more appeared out of hyperspace and waited in the atmosphere to be hailed and waved in by air traffic control. Common Corellian frigates rubbed cheeks with the equally rare Aratech droid manned cargo ships as their experienced pilots flew their crews through the chaos to the docking bays that made up the spacer-run cities.

A few clicks away from the murky planet, a junky, titanium plated Horizon-class star yacht came out of hyperspace with a flash of light and began maneuvering into place in the crowded shipping lanes.

"All right, ladies," Jake Ricks, a dark haired man in his late twenties, yelled into the comm system from his seat in the cockpit of the _Star Dancer_ as he guided the arrow shaped ship with a deft touch. "Welcome to Dea'une! This is where we get to drop off the bad," referring to their cargo, of course, "and pick up the worst. Meet in five in the lounge!" Jake tapped in the commands to his blinking Nav console and then left as the affirmative beep that signaled autopilot went off. He smacked a hand on the door lock, shutting the door with a hiss, and then jogged down the brightly lit hallway that led from the cockpit to the spiraling staircase that passed down to the next level.

Though the outside of the medium sized yacht looked like space trash, the inside was elegant enough to accommodate the senator from Alderaan, as well as modified with all the latest technology, released and unreleased, from the Sluis Vaan shipyards. Separated into three levels, the _Dancer_ was perfect for long jaunts across the galaxy with cargo ranging from raw materials to finished products, as well as the various disreputable items that most 'traders' dealt with.

The first level was a spacious cargo hold loaded, though not for the first time, with canisters and crates full of various liquors, spirits, and non-alcoholic drinks. The crew's main supplier, a shipping company based off of Mustafar, had gone out of business, leaving Jake and the others scrambling for a job to keep themselves on the market. The second floor held the roomy lounge area, the galley, and a bar, as well as quarters for all five crew members and several passengers. The third and top level was the cockpit, Nav, systems, and engine area where Jake spent the majority of his time.

Just as the slim man reached the second landing, members of the crew began filing in from their respective rooms, where they'd spent the seventeen hour hyperspace trip sleeping or amusing themselves.

Pol Raga, a surly Bothan as well as his best friend and first mate, was the first to enter the comfortable lounge, taking up his usual seat at the bar and punching an order into the console for a glass of juma. The large, beastlike humanoid, took a sip at his drink before nodding his shaggy head at Jake and rumbling, "Any chance of some deck leave when we dock, Ricks?" he held up his cup in a mocking salute. "This juma tastes like week old kath hound piss!"

"Sure, sure, Raga," Jake replied as he clapped his hand on the other man's shoulder. He and the Bothan had been in the same unit when they served the Republic in the Mandalorian Wars, and had used the pay they'd received afterwards to buy themselves the ship and begin their own shipping business. "Just as soon as we unload all the swill in our belly, we'll take some good 'ole R and R." Jake left the large man grumbling about not being able to drink their cargo and kicked back on one of the long, synth-leather couches.

"Captain, Raga," Jake looked up as he heard the clipped voice and watched as the third member of their crew, a zabrak woman that went by the name of Kara, strode past him and sat stiffly in a chair opposite the couch.

"You know, Kara," Jake said, mischief glinting in his dark eyes. "You really need to relax a little!"

"And why is that, captain?" the woman replied a tad bit testily. "Is it not wise to always be on the alert?"

Jake could only shake his head bemusedly. "First of all, we have kath hound boy over there to be alert for us," he barely dodged the empty glass that whistled over his head to shatter on the wall behind the couch. The Bothan hated it when his friend called him that. The name had come about when he and Ricks had had a little too much to drink, and were sharing some, disreputable, stories. Suffice it to say, neither had forgotten what had been said, and Ricks got a little kick every now and then by reminding his friend. "And second of all," Jake continued as he picked shards of glass carefully out of his thick hair, "I think the people we bought the furniture from said something about having ramrods sticking in the leather."

"Are you sure they didn't mention something like that about you, captain?" Kara's grey eyes glittered with amusement, and she even allowed a little smile on her face.

"What do you -aagh!" Jake grunted as a blur blond vaulted the couch and landed right in his midriff. "Sorah!"

"Hey there to you too, big brother!" the blond teenaged girl on his chest replied with a bubbly laugh that got their more dour crewmembers chuckling as well. Sorah Ricks, Jake's younger sister and last remaining family member, was the youngest member of the crew, as well as their navigator and general computer specialist.

"Why can't you ever say hello like a normal person, S?" Jake wined as he pushed his sister off his stomach and resettled himself so they could share the couch. "Ooh, my poor liver!"

"Where would be the fun in that?" Sorah replied innocently, crystal blue eyes wide in her face. "Besides, I think you should have some words with Mr. Whiskey and Mrs. Brandy if you're having issues with your liver!"

"Haw haw, how funny." Jake grumbled as he sat up straight and looked out at his crew. "Alright then, time for the arrival debrief." His tone, when coupled with his stern expression, made him look more like the hardened soldier than the easy going pilot he usually was. "Now, once we dock-"

"Wait a minute!" Sorah interrupted, ignoring her brother's death glare as she counted off the people in the room. "There are only three of us in here! Where's Reysha?"

"She's still in her quarters," muttered Raga as he climbed behind the bar looking for something stronger than the non-alcoholic juice. "Probably sleeping."

"And why didn't anyone tell me?" Jake asked as he smacked his forehead. "She's our tech! Without her, this hunk of junk wouldn't fly! She needs to be here!"

"She had a pretty rough trip, big bro," Sorah said, bubbly voice toned down in concern. "I think we should just leave her alone for now." The member's of the _Dancer_'s crew were well acquainted with the eccentricities of the young tech after months spent together onboard the ship. Though she never shirked her duties, and attended all meetings and briefings required of her, Reysha had held all of them at arms length from the moment they'd met her, throwing off all efforts at friendship with soft words and sad smiles. They still knew little more about her than her name and homeworld, Deralia.

"Well, I'll be gentle. She signed onto this ship, so she's gotta do what we've all gotta do." Jake said firmly as he stood up and headed to Reysha's portside room. She was the only crew member to sleep on that side of the ship.

"Yo, Reysha!" he knocked on her door and then stopped and listened. He heard sounds coming from inside, but the door remained shut. "Hey! I'm coming in!" he palmed the door lock and winced as the heavy smell of liquor flooded out of the room. "Dear Force," he whispered as he took in the wreck of a room. "What happened to this girl?"

Reysha, a caramel skinned woman in her mid twenties, lay sprawled across her bed in a twisted mess of sheets and sweat soaked, purplish hair, fully dressed but for the shredded top on the floor. Scattered on the floor around her bed were scores of empty stimpacks and bottles that held everything from Tarisian Ale and Firewhiskey to Hothan Ice Vodka. There was even a half empty bottle of the acidic stuff clasped in her right hand, dangling over the side of the bed.

"Reysha?" he put a hand on her bare shoulder and then quickly removed it when she let out a pained whimper.

"It's gone, it's gone!" she whispered frantically, "why, sister? Tell me why I can't…" her voice degenerated back into unintelligible whimpers as her trembling increased.

"Damn woman," Jake grumbled as he reached into his belt pouch and began sorting through the random credit chips. "Why do you do this to yourself?" he pulled out an adrenal stim and positioned it over her jugular vein. "Don't worry, you'll be awake in a moment." He pressed the button and then began his wait for her awakening.

_**Star Dancer: Seventeen Hours Earlier…**_

_Connect the power core to the external photoreceptors…_ Reysha Starfire was sitting in the darkness of the _Star Dancer_'s cargo hold, occupying her mind with anything she could find. She had already memorized the labels of every single one of the cargo crates in the hold, counted the blips in the hyperdrive engine, and even memorized the five hundred hyperspace routes between Coruscant and Corellia, all in a frantic attempt to keep herself from thinking.

… _By fusing the fiber optics cable o the verpine switchboard chip embedded in the center left of the central chassis…nothingness, empty nothingness…screams, howls as all those lives…No! Think about something, anything else! Right, power servos must be connected to the core by hooking the right systems link to the processor…. _She chose a hydrospanner from her tool belt and then pulled her safety visor, complete with embedded flashlights, over her eyes. It wasn't until the white light hit her hand that she realized that it was trembling uncontrollably.

"Damn," she whispered to herself. She could feel the craving building up in her chest. It had been a full week and a half since her supply of glitterstims, death-sticks, and spice had run out, and she was feeling intense withdrawal. This was not going to be a good day.

The young ex-Jedi had turned to drugs and vice after failing to find anything that would fill up the emptiness inside her where the Force had once lain; that would drown out the maddening echo in her mind that was the death scream of thousands of sentient life forms.

At first, she'd thought that taking a job on a busy freighter would occupy her mind enough to let her move on, but a few weeks without sleep had dissuaded her of that notion.

Next, she'd tried drinking herself into oblivion. Passing out was all well and good to the sleep-deprived woman, but the dreams that came to her during the night and the painful headaches in the morning shot that idea down as well. It wasn't until she was introduced to spice and other narcotics by the shadier sentients she came across while off duty in spaceports that she found a way to block out the emptiness, if only for awhile.

"This is your captain speaking!" Reysha jumped as Jake's voice came on over the comm system, nearly splicing the wires of AT-40, the tiny astromech she was working on, into a billion pieces with the sharp edged tool. "Return to your rooms and prepare for the jump to hyperspace. We should arrive in a little over sixteen hours, so I suggest everyone return to their bunks and get some sleep. Actually, I ORDER you all to get some sleep!"

"Alright, AT," Reysha sighed regretfully as she closed the droid's chassis. "I'm done for now. Go back upstairs and help Jake out in the cockpit."

"Dwoo beep boop!" the little droid trilled as it came online and bumped her shins gently, much like a cat would.

"I'm fine," Reysha replied, sliding the 'spanner back into its belt loop and then pushing the visor back up on her head. "Truly! Just a little tired is all."

"Woo dee bop!"

"I look like a what?" she glared down the stairway at AT as it trilled its laughter sound. "If I'm a glitbit, then you're gonna be scrap the next time I get my hands on you! Now leave me alone!" she stomped back up the stairs and blew through the crew quarters on her way to her room, startling Pol Raga as he went for his nightly glass of juma.

The moment her room door closed behind her, leaving her alone in the soundproofed cabin, the death screams of the Force rose to a deafening cacophony in her head. "Why won't it stop?" she moaned aloud as she clutched her head in her hands and buried her face in the smooth blankets on her couch. "The emptiness, the silence, it's still there, and I don't know why!" she began rocking as the void in her soul once more began to consume her thoughts, teasing her with memories of how the galaxy had seemed brighter, how voices sounded sweeter, how even the air tasted of hope and potential through eyes seeing through the grace of the Force.

But it was all gone now, the Force, her brother and sister Jedi, her life. All she was left with was memories that tormented her thoughts, screams that haunted her every moment, and a loss the ached with each breath she took.

_**It is alright. The Wars ended eight years ago. The Code brought you peace once before. Do not forsake it now. You will find peace in time…**_

"Oh shut up…" Reysha knew she was speaking to a voice in her head, but had already accepted insanity as part of her penance. "How did the code help me, help any of us, when all around us, our men were dying and killing? I knew each of those brave men and women personally, almost as if we had been born and raised together like family. I was as closely bonded with those thousands as I was with my own sister, if not more! I knew their sorrows, their worries, their secrets; everything there was to know about them! And they trusted me with their lives! What did I do to reward them? I threw them all away."

_**But you won the war, saving more lives than could possibly have been lost. How can you torment yourself for doing what was right?**_

"I felt all those billions of sentients and worlds die too." Reysha interrupted the voice, strange as that sounds, by muttering to herself. "The other Jedi were saddened by the loss, but fell back on the Code and didn't allow themselves to feel. I nearly died when I felt the Mandalorians attack the Cathari home world, the hatred and killing and agonizing sorrow…"

**_But that emotional tie to all life is what made you a Jedi, one of the best of the Order. It gave you the strength to do what was right. Come now, life will go on. You will heal-_**

"Enough!" Reysha dashed the helpless tears streaking her face away and began digging frantically through the footlocker at the base of her twin sized bed. "Just, shut up! I don't want pity, not even my own! I just want… numbness... apathy…." Her efforts were rewarded a moment later with a vacuum sealed box and a crate full of various liquor.

"Here we go," she murmured eagerly as her trembling fingers fought with the ancient combination lock. "Oblivion and sleep, all in one go." The catch finally snapped open, spilling twenty full needles out onto the coverlet. Each hypo was full of a sedative strong enough to knock out a trandoshan, and, when mixed with synthehol, was enough to put a person in a semi-coma. It was exactly what she desired for what was going to be a truly horrific seventeen hours.

_**Why do you do this to yourself?**_

Reysha ignored nagging voice in her head as she lay back on her pillows, settled herself comfortably, and downed a full bottle of firewhiskey in one long drought. "Gahh!" she gasped as the liquid burned down her throat, and then pitched the bottle across the room to shatter against the wall, sending shards of glass flying into the piles of clothes and spare parts scattered haphazardly about the room.

"Thank the Force this place is soundproofed," she muttered as she reached into the crate and pulled out another bottle, this time Corellian brandy.

_**You're killing yourself, you know?**_

"And?" she replied thickly as she tilted the bottle of reddish liquid to her lips. She was starting to feel a pleasant buzz from the liquid she'd imbibed, and her problems began blurring together in a distant part of her mind. "Don't I deserve death for all the mothers I rendered sonless, the wives husbandless, and the children fatherless?" thinking, and arguing, in this strain inevitably led her synthehol clouded thoughts back to the root of her pain. Malachor V.

It was above the shattered planet of Malachor V, less than a click out of range of the unstable planet's gravity well, that the final decisive battle raged between the faltering Republic Forces and the persistent Mandalorian warriors, and where a seventeen year old Jedi Knight had to make the hardest decision she'd ever made, one that would end the war then and there.

Leading the troops against the hardened warriors on the surface of the planet was Admiral Revan Starfire and her best friend, Jedi Knight Malak Habari, while General Reysha Starfire ordered the fleet in the dance of silent death and bright explosions that was space battle high above their heads. The war below was as much a battle as a series of ambushes and assassinations taking place in the maze like environment, while the fighting above was simple killing. Every now and then, the twisted wreckage of a ship caught in the gravity well or shot down landed on the surface, adding another element to the fierce fighting taking place amongst the crags and shadows.

It was in that moment of desperation that Bao-dur, a zabrak tech working for the Republic, approached Reysha with a final, terrible solution. The Mass Shadow Generator.

"General," the zabrak had said as he approached her command chair in front of a view-screen monitoring the battle. "My teams have reported that the charges for the MSG are set and ready to be triggered at your command. We can end this war now! Use it, General, and wipe the Mandalorians from existence!" his normally gentle eyes had been burning with the hatred and anger that rolled off him in waves that she could feel through the Force, and his voice had an edge that she'd never heard before, not even in past battles.

"We wait until we receive word from my sister, Bao-dur." Reysha replied with the Jedi calm that she didn't feel, forcing her tone and features to remain neutral when she really wanted to hack into something with her saber. "Revan and Malak are still on the surface seeking out the Mandalore, not to mention the troops accompanying them. Now," she typed in a few commands into her console and the view screen switched from a swarm of green dots attacking a huge mass of red to statistics that updated themselves constantly as fighters were destroyed, frigates knocked out of commission, and the numbers of repaired vehicles reentering the fight. "I'm sure there is something that a man of your talents can do around here, my friend. Have faith in the Force. All shall be well, and the Mandalorians will be defeated." She turned her jade eyes back to the screen in clear dismissal and began running the numbers in her head, comparing them to those in the last battle over Duros.

"But, General!" Bao-dur slammed his self-made hand on her terminal, causing it to wink out for a moment. The bridge froze at the sound, leaving the warning claxons shrieking in the dead silence of the room. "We can get them NOW!"

"I said we wait, Lieutenant!" Reysha's normally quiet voice cracked like a whip as her blazing eyes met the tech's and a Force push sent him stumbling back. "We will NOT make such a drastic move until Revan has confirmed that her mission was a success. We will NOT sacrifice our men to such a gruesome death if we can hold out! The death of Mandalore will force the Mandalorians to surrender, as were the terms when Revan agreed to duel the man! Do I make myself clear, Lieutenant?"

Movement on the bridge returned to normal slowly, warily, as the men watched the young Jedi stalk to the plasteel windows and lean her head against the cool glass, shoulders heaving in ire and confusion.

_Where did that come from? _Reysha thought as she felt the cold of space sap the warmth from her skin. _One moment I was calm, serene, and the next I was using the Force on a subordinate, a friend! What in the name of all that is good is happening to me?_

She was still standing in front of the window, eyes seeing the fighters fighting and dying while her mind confronted what had just happened, when she heard her comm link crackle to life.

"Reysha!" she jumped as her twin sister's voice came through the headset with a burst of static. "Manda…d...ead…u…se…gen…!"

"Repeat that request, Revan!" Reysha nearly shouted as she heard and felt the urgency in Revan's voice. Strangely enough, though, when she reached out to touch her sister's mind, their bond was blocked on Revan's end. "I can't understand you!"

"DO IT NOW!" Revan roared, voice cutting through the interference caused by the planet's gravity well. "USE THE MSG!"

"Copy that, Reysha out." Reysha turned to Bao-dur, noticing the zabrak still standing by the console that would activate his invention, and then hesitated. She would follow her sister's orders to the T, yet, even though she trusted Revan with her life, she felt that something horrible was looming just over the horizon. "Do it." She nodded to the zabrak and then stared out the window at the roiling planet. Transports were streaming from the surface, the one at the fore containing, she felt through the Force, Revan and Malak.

"With pleasure!" Bao-dur growled as he tapped in the command and then pushed the final button firmly.

At first, nothing seemed to happen, and then a huge shockwave burst out of the planet, twisting the hunks of space debris in its orbit into unrecognizable lumps.

"Oh no," Reysha mouthed as she realized how close the Fleet's ships were to the planet. "Computer, open communications to the fleet!" the computer beeped when the command went through, and Reysha shouted, "this is General Starfire speaking! All ships leave the immediate area immediately! I repeat, get the hell out of here!"

A psychic blast knocked her forward, and she gasped as, before her eyes, Mandalorian and Republic ships alike were being crushed in the rapidly expanding gravity well. A second blast followed that, and then another and another, leaving Reysha gasping against the pain of those thousands of deaths. There was a bright flash of light as finally, the planet itself cracked under the pressure of its own gravity, killing all those on the surface instantly.

The blood drained from Reysha's face as she saw the fissures spreading across the surface, and then pain unlike any she had ever experienced assaulted all her senses at once. The last thing she remembered was screaming as she felt something being torn out inside her, and then everything was blessedly silent….

…. And she found herself back in her room aboard the _Dancer_, staring into a half-empty bottle of Tarisian Ale. Her eyes shifted muggily to her forearms, to the white scars that criss-crossed her skin all the way to the elbow. In those first few days after the battle, she'd found that concentrating on the smaller pain had taken away from the large, but cutting no longer held any power over her thoughts. She'd concentrated on not feeling for a long time now.

_How long has it been?_ Her thoughts had to struggle through the cloud of synthehol that filled her mind, dimming her awareness to everything, especially the void. Scattered on the durasteel floor were, at the very least, twelve differing bottles of liquor and two empty hypos. Her white blouse, one of the few she had, lay on the floor, shredded where her fingernails had caught trying to get it off, leaving her in naught but her leggings, boots, and black sports bra.

_Funny,_ She thought giddily as she stretched out on the bed and shielded her eyes with her arm, _I don't remember taking all that… maybe it's time to sleep now… I should be drunk enough… drugged enough…_ And then oblivion claimed her, pulling her into the heavy, oppressive darkness that she'd come to know as sleep.

It didn't take long for the nightmares to start.

_**Star Dancer: Current **_

"Damn, girl," Jake muttered as he reached into his belt pouch for another stimpack, "What the hell did you do to yourself? I haven't seen anyone this smashed since the end of the war!" It had been twenty minutes since the young captain had left the mission debrief in Pol Raga's hands and come to the portside cabins to collect Reysha, the missing crewmember.

What he'd found in her room had sent a surge of anger through the man, though even he didn't know why. Something about seeing that paradox of a woman; beautiful and yet horribly scarred; intelligent and yet heartbreakingly innocent; wise beyond her years and yet childishly pure; passionate and yet empty- hurting threw a 'spanner in the gears of his life.

_How did those happen, I wonder?_ He thought as he stared at the scars and welts that criss-crossed the girl's back. One wound in particular caught his attention: a perfect circle burned into the flesh right over her left hip. Jake knew that if he turned the girl onto her back, he'd most likely see a matching hole on her abdomen.

Suddenly, the girl moaned and sat up abruptly, narrowly missing his head as the stims running through her system finally took effect. "W-what are you doing in here?" Reysha demanded as she pulled out of his grip and backed out of reach, either unaware or uncaring about her lack of decency.

"What am I doing here?" Jake replied, suddenly very angry as he stepped away from the trembling woman and leaned back against the far wall. "I should be asking you the same thing! I came here to drag a sleepyhead out to our debriefing, and I open your door to find evidence of a drinking binge laced with sleep stims! What the hell were you thinking? Were you trying to kill yourself?"

Reysha just looked at him with those calm, neutral eyes of hers and waited until his tirade ended before saying, "I apologize, Jake, for missing the meeting. I assume it's just the usual docking procedure? I'll make sure to take a look at the hull and systems before I take my leave." Traditionally, after every successful run, Jake allowed his crew shore leave for all but the last day they were in port. That day they spent doing last minute check-ups on supplies, cargo, and the ship before leaving again.

"Well, yeah," Jake scratched his head confusedly at the girl's response. Had she not heard anything that he'd just said? "But wait a sec! What's with all this?" he gestured towards the bottles and empty needles scattered across the floor.

Reysha just smiled sadly and replied, "Have you never wanted to crawl into a bottle and spend the rest of your life there, dead to the world?" still trembling, she uncoiled herself and stood up gracefully, sweeping her purple-black hair out of her face and behind her shoulders, and walked to the door that led to her private 'fresher.

"Maybe during the Wars," he said, a bewildered expression on his face as he watched her. What did any of that have to do with what he was saying? "But only after a battle where we lost a lot of people, or won a great victory. Why? Were you a soldier back then?" _I can't believe it took finding her on the back end of a drinking binge to get her to open up to me!_

"No," she replied as she palmed the door open with a shrug. "But I know what it's like to feel loss. I feel it every hour of every day, forever. Now, excuse me," she didn't wait for a reply and ducked into the 'fresher.

"Fine!" he shouted through the closed door. "But this isn't over! You owe me an explanation after pulling a stunt like this!" he received no reply, and, after standing about for a few minutes in the wreckage of her room, stomped away. He would figure out what was going on with that girl if it was the last thing he did!

**A/N: **Like? Dislike? Tell me! Spring break is nearly over, and I don't want to waste time writing this when I could be writing any of my other fics too! Oh, btw, check those out (shameless self-promotion)  R&R!

LFK


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** I wish I were George Lucas' daughter, 'cause then I actually –would- own the star wars universe! Obviously, I'm not, so I don't. Chill, and don't sue.

**A/N:** well, just like to say I appreciate the pair of reviews that prompted me to continue writing. Also, I messed around with the timeline a bit, so if you have any questions about what's happening during this fic just drop a review or a PM.

-LFK

_**Star Dancer, Reysha's Quarters…**_

When the 'fresher door was safely closed behind her, Reysha stumbled over to the toilet, raised the lid, and proceeded in what had become a morning ritual to the ex-Jedi: puking her guts out.

"ow, ow, ow…" She groaned her stomach finally stopped heaving up whatever synthehol had refused to be processed by her poor liver and settled down to an empty ache. Sliding to the floor with another groan, Reysha laid her pounding head against the cool tiles and waited for the pain to die down enough that she could go look for a kolto-seltzer tab. That, and a glass of water, would settle her stomach enough that she could probably tolerate a relatively large breakfast. _Then again,_ she thought as her throbbing head pounded with increased fervor, _maybe I'll stick to a bagel._ "Oh, my head! Force, frak it!"

Reysha lay there for a long, long while, not thinking of much of anything. Simply, being. Once, long ago, she may have called what she was doing meditation, but, back then, the calm feeling would be augmented by the tantalizing swirls of errant thoughts floating in and out of her mind, and the ever present buzz of Life in the hollow of her ears. This _mockery,_ still part of her morning routine even after eight years of hiding from her past, gave her a chance to poke and prod at the wound inside her head where the Force once lay without feeling the pain of loss cutting through her thoughts. She liked to call the state 'Coherency'.

_Alright, Reysha,_ She thought as she pulled herself to her feet and tottered over to the sink, fishing about the sides for her toothbrush with one hand while the other quested for the paste. _Time to get your act together and face the day._ All of this was done with her eyes closed, from running the bristles over her pearly whites to splashing cold water over her face, neck, and shoulders.

Finally, the woman reached blindly to the side of the counter and felt around until her hand encountered a fuzzy piece of cloth, which she then used to dry off her face and her somewhat damp hair. She lowered the washcloth a moment later and opened her eyes with a sigh, only to meet them in the cabinet mirror.

Haunted, dull green eyes gazed back at her from a too-thin face framed with wavy purple streaked, black hair. She jabbed the dark bags under her eyes with a finger and snorted with amusement when they faded to caramel, and then jumped right back. In other words, Reysha was a complete mess.

With another weary sigh, she fetched her brush from one of the drawers in the counter and started the count to one hundred that she knew she'd never finish. Thirty strokes later, Reysha heard a timid knock at her door.

"Hello?" She called out wearily, knowing whom it was just by the way she knocked.

"Reysha? It's me, Sorah." There was a hesitant pause before the girl continued, "Can I come in?"

"Sure, one sec." Reysha sighed at the interruption so soon after Jake's as she exited the fresher and threw on one of the cleaner shirts tossed on the back of her chair. Luckily, it seemed the captain had picked up her room while she was in the fresher, and the bottles were all stashed away out of sight. She fixed a fake smile on her face and palmed open the door. "Yes? Can I help you?"

"Hey, Reysha," Thankfully, Sorah's excitement had been tuned down a couple of notches. "Just coming to tell you that we're going to be docking soon, and, um," she trailed off as red suffused her pale cheeks.

"Sorah," Reysha sighed –she seemed to be doing that a lot since she woke up – and ran a hand through her hair. "Just tell me what you want, 'kay, hon? I already got the mother of all lectures from your brother before I was even properly awake, and I want to be able to have my morning caffa before we get to the port."

"Yeah, hehe," Sorah chuckled nervously and peeked up at the purple haired woman. "I was just wondering if you'd, um, want to go shopping with me?"

"Shopping." Reysha deadpanned, crossing her arms and leaning against the doorframe as she spoke.

"Yeah!" Sorah chirped in reply, bouncing from foot to foot with nervous energy. "We're only gonna be in port for three days, and Raga's been complaining about the lack of edible food in the frig-unit and drinkable booze in the bar. 'Sides, we're not gonna be in port for a _long_ time afterwards, and I wanna pick up some holodisks and vids." She gave Reysha a quick once over and wrinkled her nose. "More importantly, we need to pick up some clothes for you. You're twenty-four, not fifty, and you should dress like it!"

"Is there any way I can get out of this?" Reysha asked dryly, already knowing the answer. _Hey! What's wrong with how I dress?_

"Not a chance!" Sorah laughed as she hugged her friend around the neck and then, literally, bounced off in the direction of the crew quarters.

Reysha stared after the hyper girl in bemusement and simply shook her head. _That girl reminds me of the way we were, so long ago. How did we lose it all, Revan?_ As usual, her long dead, or missing, twin didn't answer her thoughts. She just couldn't believe the reports that said her sister was gone. Something told her that Revan was still alive, and she'd just have to wait until the universe saw fit to bring them back together.

"I was on my way to warn you," Reysha started out of her thoughts as the zabrak woman's cool voice hailed her from down the hall. "But it appears you've already been hit by Hurricane Sorah. Looks like you came through unscathed."

Reysha smiled thinly at her crewmate. From the moment she'd met Kara, Reysha, perhaps through some remnant of her empathic or Force bonding abilities, had immediately distrusted the horned alien. It wasn't anything she'd ever done, but Reysha just had a feeling that the eyes that she felt watching her when she was alone belonged to the mercenary.

"Yes," she replied civilly, palming the door shut as she saw Kara's eyes drift over her shoulder. "Sorah blew through here a moment ago. Looks like we're going to be making a bit of a dint in our pocket money."

"Sounds like fun!" though Kara's voice was friendly, her eyes remained cool and calculating. _Like a snake's,_ Reysha thought as she stubbornly met those eyes. _Or a Sith's._

"Sure." Reysha replied shortly as she started down the hall in the direction of the galley. "I'll let you know how it went when we return."

"Oh, I'm coming along too, don't you worry." Kara said smugly as they entered the crew lounge together. Reysha stalked over to the frig unit and pulled out a slightly wizened apple and a half-empty cartoon of milk, ignoring her crewmate in favor of fixing herself breakfast.

Biting into the fruit to hold it in place, Reysha then reached into one of the cabinets and pulled out a cup of insta-caffa, the last remaining non-synthesized food in their foundering stores.

"Great," Reysha growled around her mouthful as she pulled the tab that instantly heated the contents of the styrofoam cup. The heavenly scent of caffa wafted throughout the room, making Reysha sigh in contentment as she poured a bit of milk into the cup and then raised it to her lips. Blessed silence fell between the two women; Reysha drinking her caffa and eating her apple while Kara scrounged about in the cabinets and frig in search of edible food.

"So Ah hear you gals are gang onae shoppin' spree." Pol Raga's brogue shattered the well-constructed silence as he reentered the room for the second time that morning.

"Wha," Reysha replied with a genuine smile teasing at the corners of her lips, mimicking his rough accent perfectly. "No' enough booze fae ya?"

"Nevah enough booze!" Raga replied with a wink. Reysha just smirked and shook her head. Only a year ago, it had been through the burly ex-soldier that Reysha had acquired her position aboard the _Star Dancer._

_**Nar Shadaa, Four Years after the end of the Mandalorian War…**_

After years of wandering planet-to-planet, former Republic General and Jedi Reysha Starfire found she no longer had the energy to run. Drawing from her last credit chip, Reysha took a grav-lift to the entertainment district of the roughest quarter of Nar Shadaa, and hadn't left yet.

It was nearly three a.m. standard time when Reysha came out of the fog of synthehol that clouded her thoughts long enough to notice the group of shady looking aliens stumbling towards her table in the darkest corner of the nameless dive. Another quick glance showed the bar to empty but for the snoozing bouncer by the door, the rodian bartender idly cleaning glasses with his dirty rag, and a clearly unconscious bothan lying slumped over a pile of bottles at the barstand.

"What's a pretty lady like you doing in a dirty pit like this?" a slimy looking twi'lek leered as he leaned over Reysha's table. "Come on, me and the boys will help you to someplace fun, if you're nice about it."

Reysha squinted up at him and said in clear, intelligible Basic, "didn't your mother ever tell you not to pick up strange girls? Now, go 'way before I…hurtyoureallybadly…" the rest was cut off with a low moan as all of the beer and spirits she'd been drinking finally caught up to her. _Damn,_ she thought. _That would've been so much more profound, too._ She's missed the oily smiles passed amongst the group as the twi'lek gestured with his headtails.

"Come now," he said as his boys flanked her table, cutting off all escapes. "Don't be that way, we just wanna show you a good time!"

His first mistake was touching her.

"I said," Reysha gritted out between her teeth as she took the offending limb and twisted it in its socket until the twi'lek was on his knees whimpering. "Leave. Me. Alone. What didn't you understand about that?" she applied more pressure to his arm until she heard that satisfying pop as his shoulder dislocated.

The man squealed in pain, headtails wriggling furiously as he issued unspoken orders to his gang. "Get…her!"

Reysha dodged the first round pf punches and kicks easily, only stumbling once or twice due to the ten or so liters of synthehol floating in her system. She caught a clumsy kick flying towards her head with the outside of her forearm and then grasped her attacker above the ankle and swung him off balance and into three of his mates. A hard left hook rocked her entire body as it clipped her right shoulder, and she could feel her arm go numb.

_Shit!_ She thought as she slid under a table and entangled another alien's feet in a chair. _They're on stims! And why in the name of the Force hasn't that bouncer woken up? Where's the bartender?_ She rolled out from her hiding spot and drop kicked a burly trandoshan where the sun doesn't shine, knocking him out of the fight with a girly squeal.

It wasn't until the twi'lek spat out a word in Huttese that Reysha began to worry. As one, the gang members -those still standing anyway- reached behind their belts and pulled out stun rods.

"Pretty girl is about to be not so pretty!" an ugly looking weequay laughed harshly as he circled closer to the surrounded woman.

"Just try it, bantha butt." Reysha spat in reply as she maneuvered her back to a wall away from any other enemies, dropping back into a fighting stance. _Bantha butt? What kinda insult is that? Oh, I am SO off my game!_

The weequay seemed to be just as bemused by her comment as she was, leaving an opening in his guard that she didn't hesitate to abuse. A loud crack heralded the departure of the first casualty of the brawl, and the combatants seemed to stall a bit to acknowledge the drawing of a new line. This wasn't a game anymore, and Reysha had clearly expressed her desire to be out.

"Any more takers then?" Reysha demanded as the thugs reconvened around her. She could feel fatigue pounding behind her eyes, and knew she wouldn't be able to hold out much longer. "Come on! You huttslimes ruined my night, so the least you can do is offer up some entertainment!" _You idiot!_ She berated herself as they came on again, wary readiness in their eyes and rods at bay. _Do you want them to kill you?_ She cut off that train of thought before she could actually consider it.

There was a crash of glass shattering against the wall, and the whole room froze as a rough voice rang out. "It's no' nice to be pickin' on a wee lass all 'lone, ye bunch o' bastards! Why don' yeh, try this on fer size!" Reysha watched in stunned amazement as the bothan from before crashed into the back of the group and began laying about with his heavy fists with blows that cracked bone and ruptured organs.

"I suppose you want me to thank you," Reysha said stiffly a few moments later. The remaining gang members were spread out haphazardly amidst the ruined tables and chairs that were all that was left of the dirty dive.

"Well, that'd be nice, but it's not wha' Ah want." The bothan swigged back the half-full bottle remaining on the barstand and then tossed it into a wall where it shattered into a billion pieces. "Now, yeh have tha look of a fighta about cha, and ma ship could use a lass like yersel'. Have yeh any other skills to bring t' tha table of a cargo boat?"

Reysha appraised the man for a moment, not for the first time cursing her lack of Force powers, and then nodded. "I'm a tech. fighter craft, frigates, droids; you name it, I can handle it." _Or at least I hope I can,_ she thought to herself as the bothan nodded his shaggy head in thought. _How much of who I am -_was_- was through the influence of the Force?_

"Alrigh' then, mah name's Pol Raga, and Ah'm firs' mate aboard tha _Star Dancer_. Come with me, and Ah'll introduce yeh to the cap'n."

_**Star Dancer, crew cabin….**_

"Ladies and Gentlemen!" the crew paused as Jake's voice came over the intercom. Reysha was shaken out of her reminiscing and hurriedly gulped down the rest of her lukewarm caffa. "Please take a seat and strap in as we make our final approach to Dea'une. Would all flight attendants please make preparations for reentry? Than- hey! What the- AT!" Sorah giggled as she heard AT trill an insult on the tail end of Jake's announcement, and the violent clank that was her brother's response.

"Well, yeh 'eard tha man," Raga said as he placed his drink in the dishwasher and then moved to strap himself into one of the seats around the lounge. "Strap in, lassies, so we can get this show on tha road!"

Reysha put her empty cup in the incinerator bin and then strapped herself into the seat across from Raga's, taking a deep breath to calm her racing heart. She was fine with flying –hell, she'd flown point in a starfighter squadron during the wars!- but there was just something about taking off and landing that caused her anxiety.

Just as the others managed to get their belts clipped, the _Star Dancer_ began trembling and shaking as the stabilizers fought to control their descent into the atmosphere of Dea'une. Suddenly, as the ship hit a particularly rough patch, Reysha began feeling strange- dizzy. It was almost as if her consciousness was being spread out in two different directions, or another mind was trying to invade her own.

"Reysha? Reysha!" Reysha forced herself to focus on Sorah as she realized the girl had been talking to her for some time. "Are you ok?"

"Fine." Reysha replied shortly, putting her head in her hands as the splitting pain in her skull increased exponentially. Finally, just when she thought the pounding couldn't get any worse, that other presence disappeared altogether, and she felt herself slowly coming back together.

_What the hell was that?_ She mused as her thoughts stopped bouncing off each other insanely and the world stopped spinning. _I haven't felt anything like that in_... years!

"But, Reysha, your nose is bleeding!" Sorah exclaimed. She hadn't stopped babbling on in the whole time Reysha was zoned out, unsurprisingly. The moment the ship evened out, she jumped from her seat and knelt beside Reysha a split second later with a wet rag from the kitchen.

"It's nothing." The tech croaked out, shoulders tensing at the continuing headache assaulting her cranium. Maybe the caffa hadn't solved all her problems like she'd thought. "I've never been good with reentry, but this is definitely one of my worst experiences up to date." _Damn, _she thought, _it feels like my fracking head is cracked!_

The next thirty minutes until landing were uneventful, after her friends got the teasing out of their systems. Reysha stayed quiet for most of that time, ignoring the concerned eyes of her crewmates as she nursed her headache and tried to figure out exactly what had happened.

Three years ago, Reysha had felt something similar to what she'd just experienced, but it had been so much worse that she'd spent the whole day drinking and taking stims to bring the pain down to a tolerable level. That was the day she felt the death pains of a part of her soul she thought she'd long disowned months earlier, but this pain felt like the birth of something new.

"Reysha!" suddenly, Jake's face was inches from her own, and she realized that the ship had landed and the crew was nowhere in sight. "Are you ok? I understand that you're coming off a bad hangover, but I need you to do the post-flight checks with AT before I allow the dockworkers to help themselves to our cargo. Are you up to it?"

"How many times do I have to say I'm fine?" Reysha grumbled as she nudged Jake out of the way and freed herself from her harness. She missed the flash of hurt in the captain's eyes as he moved away from her, as well as the slight sigh that escaped his lips.

"Dammit, girl, go ahead and sue us for worrying when a crewmate near passes out!" Jake snapped to her back as she headed towards the docking ramp down the hall. "Get to work then; everyone else sure is!"

The normally cool girl waved a rude gesture from behind her back as she stalked down the ramp, ignoring Sorah's shocked gasp as she passed.

"So how'd it go?" the teen asked her brother as he came up alongside her. "Any, fireworks?" it had been her pet project ever since the reticent woman had joined their crew to hook her up with her brother.

"No," Jake replied stiffly as they both stepped off the ramp and into the bustling spaceport. "And there sure as hell won't be any, if I have any say about it!" he finished with a growl as he watched Reysha press a button on the side of her forehead, causing a red visor to flash across her eyes with flickering visuals that told her the status of the ship's systems. She muttered a curse and the glared directly at Jake before pulling a fusion cutter from her belt and popping open a pane on the belly of the ship.

"Oh," Sorah replied rather dejectedly. "I see. She still wants to go shopping with me though, right?"

"Whatever." Jake muttered as he strode towards where Raga was negotiating docking fees with ground control. That girl was getting on his last nerve with her self-righteous pity fests and her arrogant attitude towards the rest of them! God, he needed a drink. Maybe Raga would hit a bar with him when they were done with the post-flight stuff.

**A/N:** Sorry about the long delay, but I finally got motivated enough to actually finish what I'd written a couple weeks ago. Thanks for reviewing, and I hope new readers continue to do so!


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